


how rare and beautiful it is to even exist

by decideophobia



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Gen, Healing, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon Fix-It, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 11:03:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18755164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decideophobia/pseuds/decideophobia
Summary: He steps through the door, unseeing.Quentin steps out,feeling, onto the Brakebills campus.





	how rare and beautiful it is to even exist

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, my fix-it for this whole mess. It got darker and angstier than I thought it would but I just went where Quentin took me, and I actually like it. I was actually opting for a cute fluffy one, but then this happened. Rating for discussion and mention of suicide and suicidal ideation, so please beware. If you feel like there are tags missing, please feel free to let me know.
> 
> HUGE thanks goes out to [Dani](https://steverogrs.tumblr.com/) for betaing. She has a fuckton of other shit going on in her life, so go shower her in love for doing this for me and for generally being a pure marshmallow.

Penny hands him a card, says, “This is as far as I go, brother.”

Quentin sucks in a shuddering breath as he takes it. _Underworld Metro._ What the fuck is that even supposed to mean? There’s a faint trace of anger in his mind that he can’t seem to hold on to, too exhausted, too numb, too worn thin. 

“It’ll take you where you need to go,” Penny adds with a soft look on his face, and Quentin thinks, not for the first time since the elevator doors opened, that this has to be a weird, fucked up dream; another Scarlatti web situation, maybe, because Penny—Penny hasn’t ever looked at him like that. He never spoke as softly with Quentin, never with so much sympathy, never as though he thought Quentin would break apart. 

Quentin looks down at the card before hugging Penny, mind blank, for once, and it feels wrong. His mind has never been silent. 

He releases Penny and turns, facing the door. It doesn’t show anything of what lies beyond. There’s a pull coming from it, as if it’s beckoning him, and Quentin grips the card enough to feel something resembling pain as the edges dig into his skin. 

There’s no way back. It’s what he’s always told himself; you can only go forward, never back. If you go back, if you turn around, if you regress, you lose. Of course, the better part of his brain told him that would be fine—at least it would be over, he’d be done, he’d have peace.

 _You are not only your depression, Q._ Julia’s voice echoes in his head. From that one time when it was particularly bad. _You are not just your depression; you are not only your worst moments. I know it’s hard to acknowledge when everything seems so bleak, but_ — _you are more than your depression, Q. So, so much more. Don’t let it win._

He’s not sure if this is remotely applicable here. This is a point of no return, he thinks bitterly, The only path he has now is the one in front of him.

There’s still fight left in him; he feels it with every step he takes towards the door. It’s a spark at first, but it spreads through him, weaves its way along his nerves, envelops him in something fierce and strong he hasn’t felt in almost a year—

Hope. 

He steps through the door, unseeing. 

Quentin steps out, _feeling_ , onto the Brakebills campus. It’s cold, biting even, creeping in through his hoodie. He’s slammed with—emotions so strong they make him topple over, ripping at his insides, tearing through his body—all at once, all of it, pulling him down with the weight of his heart. The pain that claws away at him is so raw it blinds him, and Quentin isn’t sure whether it’s even physical or emotional or imagined—or a strange combination of all. 

He can’t breathe for what feels like minutes, his lungs not allowing any air in, the pain squeezing tightly around his ribcage. When he finally takes a breath, it’s agonizing, the icy winter air curling down his windpipe, expanding into his lungs, and it hurts, it _hurts_ , and it’s so real. It feels like the very first time; it feels like he’s breathing for the first time, like he just came into the world.

Lying on the ground, Quentin rolls over onto his back.

The first thought that enters his mind is his surprise at the amount of pain and hurt he’s feeling upon entering his afterlife, wherever it has taken him. Isn’t it supposed to be _peaceful_? 

Slowly, he gets back up on his feet, the initial wave of whatever onslaught that was subsiding. His mind clears, brings his surroundings into sharp focus, and Quentin finds himself standing where he stood with Penny what feels like only seconds ago: at the bonfire. 

It’s still burning but nobody is around anymore. The heat of the fire is a pleasant sensation against the cold, wrapping him up nicely in warmth. Quentin sees some of the things his friends tossed in burning inside: the crown, covered in soot and ash; the egg, surprisingly resilient; the mug, broken again. His eyes search for the peach among the flames but it’s gone; too soft, too fragile to withstand the destructive heat of the fire for too long. 

The sharp pang of pain he feels at that is as deep as it can go, piercing through every nerve-ending in his body.

And yet.

His mind had come to a stuttering halt at the sight of the fire, but the thoughts are picking up pace again, firing through his head like pinballs, racing, faster and faster. Now, his heart starts thundering in his chest, hammering against his ribs as if trying to escape, so full of hope it’s almost too painful to bear.

Quentin closes his eyes, sucking in a deep breath. 

He went where he needed to go. Something cracks in his chest, something big and beautiful; something he has no name for; something he didn’t even know he had. 

***

Alice is the first one he finds. She’s storming out of the library, frantic, restless, on the verge of breaking apart. There’s a stack of books in her arms, and although her eyes are red, her cheeks tear-stained, her breathing interrupted by violent sobs, there’s fierce determination set into the features of her beautiful face. 

She’s looking, Quentin realizes, for answers, for a solution, for a resurrection. It breaks his heart, the way she doesn’t slow down and pushes through her pain, channelling it into her undying thirst for finding answers, solving mysteries, getting solutions, for finding the knowledge to fix things; finding ways to reconcile magic with goodness. 

There’s so much he feels for her, and not all of it makes sense to him yet. The decisions he made in the last couple of days seem so distant now. The conclusion he’d come to was born out of grief, despair and hopelessness. He hadn’t been fair to her, not when she first came to see him after escaping the library and certainly not now, not when he’d asked her to try again. It was stupid and desperate and selfish. It hadn’t come from a place of sincerity, his plea to get back together. 

She had been there: the only person he could turn to; Julia and Eliot possessed, and Margo on a mission to keep Fish Josh alive. And Alice had been there, warm, comfortable, familiar, and so, so desperate to prove herself to him. He’d been a dick, really. But it had felt nice, falling back into it: pretending it was okay, pretending it was what he wanted, pretending it was what he needed.

She deserves so much more than he can give her. Maybe they would’ve worked. Maybe, if they had had the time to sort out the shit that had led to their break-up, perhaps they could’ve made it work. If she hadn’t become a Niffin, and if he hadn’t clung onto the idealistic expectations of a twelve-year-old boy. He sees the world as much through new eyes as she does. Fillory made sure of it; magic made sure of it; trauma, death, loss and unmet expectations made sure of it. 

He’s still grappling with the change within him that all of it had triggered, trying to find himself again, a puzzle that had broken apart in the process and now the pieces have morphed. There isn’t a way to go back, truly. Who they were and what they had had worked in that context at that time; now they are so fundamentally different, as if they both had lived an entire lifetime apart.

He regrets, deeply, profoundly, not having been honest with her to begin with.

She almost slams into him in her rush to get through, but her body freezes, locks up tight, as soon as she looks up and spots him. The books clatter down onto the floor, spilling over her feet, but she has no regard for them.

Quentin smiles at her, sad and happy at the same time, and he blanks completely, the rush of affection wiping away everything he thought of saying. Alice reaches out, her hand hanging in the air between them, and slowly, so slowly, she touches his shoulder, hesitantly at first, but pushing, gripping, digging in as she finds it to be solid.

“Quentin,” she says, and it’s barely a brush of air, yet still with so much pain, so much hope, that it almost breaks him in two. 

He wraps her up in his arms, the tremors running through her body shaking both of them. She clings to him, crying and crying and crying, and laughing in between, and yeah;he gets the feeling. 

Quentin doesn’t know how long they stay like that. Maybe an hour, maybe five minutes, maybe an eternity, and it doesn’t matter because he gets to have her again, in a way that is right for both of them. Even if it means it might take her some time, some space, to come to terms with his decision, and he’ll give her anything she needs.

Her eyes are red and puffy, cheeks wet, and her breathing comes in shudders, but something has changed in her demeanour, calmer, more secure, settled. She doesn’t ask what happened or how he got here, how this is possible, and Quentin is grateful because he can’t answer a single one of these questions.

Alice takes both his hands and leads him to a secluded corner where they sit down on a couch, close and closer.

“Do Julia and Eliot know?” she asks.

He can’t help the smile spreading across his face because of course that would be her first question. “No,” he says, holding her hands. “You’re the first.”

Her brows furrow, something between guilt and fondness on her face. “You need to tell them. Julia and Eliot are at the cottage, I think.”

“Alice.”

She looks at him, and he can see the history they have: the hurt, the loss, the trust, lost and regained, the love, and the grief. Maybe this isn’t the most ideal spot or the most ideal time or the most ideal context to talk about but—but. They need to release each other.

He takes a breath, trying to make sense of the storm of thoughts in his head. 

“Alice, I—I—there are things I haven’t been entirely honest about—before. And I—I need you to know. Not because I want to hurt you or—I owe you a lot, but at the very least the truth.”

Finding the right words proves to be harder than he imagined. Alice’s brows furrow further.

“What do you mean?”

Quentin lets out a breath. Where do you even start? How do you tell the person who you loved for so long, who loves you too, that you lied to them about wanting to be together when you—when things got so dark you felt like all you could do was be selfish? 

“I want you in my life,” Quentin starts, repeating what he’d already told her. “I’ve always wanted you in my life, Alice. I want that, I do but—but I don’t love you the way I did when—when we first got together, or when you came back from being a Niffin. When I asked you to give us another try, I—I needed your comfort and your familiarity because there was no one else—and I—I knew you.”

The air comes rushing out of his lungs, and Quentin looks down at his hands. It hurts saying it; it hurts being honest; it’s scary. He has an idea about how Alice feels, at the very least. That doesn’t make it any better.

Quentin clears his throat. “I know it’s not much but—I’m sorry. These last couple of days, I don’t know what I would’ve done without you. You gave me something to hold on to—to see the world with new eyes.” He smiles at her, small, happy. “Thank you for that.”

Alice searches his face, her gaze intent but not penetrating, and Quentin holds it, despite the urge to look away from her eyes. 

“And I’d love to be in your life,” he says. “If you’ll have me.”

She’s quiet for a beat. “I think I knew,” she answers, then. “I was lonely, too, Q. I wanted to belong again, and when you asked—” Alice takes a deep breath. “It was comfortable and safe and—well, definitely not easy, never easy—”

Quentin is surprised at the small laughing bubbling out of him at that, and Alice smiles in return, genuine and sweet.

“And I knew. I was being selfish. I thought—I don’t know. It was stupid.”

Alice squeezes his hands, averting her eyes now. “I saw the way you looked at Eliot. The determination with which you wanted to save him.”

“Alice—”

“No, Q, let me finish,” she says, looking back up at him. It’s her brave face, and she’s soldiering on. “I don’t know what I was thinking. It felt so good when you said you wanted to forgive me. It felt so good I forgot all the things that happened, and I wanted it to be like before.” Alice lets go of his hands, brushes her fingers against his cheek. “Seeing the world through new eyes, after all that shit, it means seeing that the things we thought we wanted, the things we romanticized, aren’t actually the things that are good for us.”

She cups his neck gently, leans her forehead against his, and Quentin melts into the touch, the comfort, the familiarity, in a way that hasn’t felt good with her in a long time. 

“I’ve really missed you,” she whispers into the space between them.

Quentin winds his arms around her, her own coming up to wrap around his shoulders tightly. “I’ve missed you, too, Vix.”

They hold onto each other for a moment. There’s a deeply soothing sensation in the knowledge that he can have this again, her presence, her friendship, her affection. He didn’t know he’d been missing it as much as he does, not until now.

When they pull apart, Alice brushes a strand of hair out of his face with a tiny, soft smile. “Go find them.”

So he does.

***

The cottage is where he goes next, the safest bet at finding both Julia and Eliot. The deep-seated desire to see Julia, to hold her and tell her he’s okay, grows with every step Quentin takes closer. Julia, his best friend, his rock, the one who pushed him to be better, to grow, to overcome: his role-model in terms of taking pain and turning it into something beautiful, and having compassion instead of being utterly destroyed by the agony. It’s still there, the pain, the suffering, the memories. And while they’ll never go away, they’re not all there is to either of them.

There’s something else propelling him forward. Something so fierce it knocks the air out of his lungs, powerful, devastating, exciting. It’s the strangest cocktail of emotions, entirely overwhelming, sweeping him up in a way that leaves Quentin light-headed, giddy, impatient. The need to see Eliot so mind-numbingly desperate that he doesn’t know what to do with himself. His is skin tingling, and his limbs, bones and chest feel too tight to contain all that is pouring through him.

The cottage is surprisingly quiet when he steps through the door. Quentin takes a look around but there are no people milling around in the living space; seemingly, the entire downstairs is abandoned, the quiet disconcerting and eerie.

Quentin spots Julia curled up in one of the armchairs in front of the fire, her hair peeking out above the backrest, her wet sobs the only other sounds besides the crackling flames.

Slowly, he walks over, only half-wondering where 23 is since he’d barely left her side all this time. 

Julia sits with her knees to her chest, shoulders up to her ears, looking small and vulnerable and broken, and Quentin’s heart seizes seeing her like this again. She’s holding a deck of cards in her hands and he recognizes it as his—the one he always carried around with him, a token of remembrance, maybe, of a life before. 

The light of the fire illuminates her face, casting soft shadows across her sunken, red-rimmed eyes, cheeks ruddy and wet; her features twisted into a devastatingly heartbreaking expression of hurt and grief. The idea of thinking, even for only a split second, he could leave her behind and she would be better for it, escapes him. There was always a part of him, so deep and dark and dangerous, always lurking, always present, just beneath the surface—far away enough to keep at bay but close enough to threateningly snap at him; he’d learned and fought to not let it take over. 

At least he did until that split of a second in the mirror world; that split of a second that was long enough and powerful enough to knock down his defenses, to suspend all of the fight left in him, and he’d decided to give up. And when the split of a second had been over, when it’d released him again, it had been too late.

“Jules,” Quentin says, as softly as he can manage without his voice breaking, coming around to kneel down next to the armchair. 

When she lifts her eyes to look at him, there is disbelief in them. “Q.” She reaches for him, slowly cupping his cheek, probing, just like Alice did, and Quentin leans into her touch, grateful for the comfort and happiness it brings him.

“Is this—” Julia’s voice shakes. “Why are you here?”

Quentin covers her hand with his own, turns his head to plant a kiss into her palm. “To say I’m sorry.”

Julia snatches her hand away, the pain melting away from her face and into anger. “No,” she snaps. “You—they—whoever. Don’t get to do that. They don’t get to bring you here to say sorry—and take you away again. What kind of fucked up bullshit is this?”

She’s trembling, barely holding herself together, and Quentin wants nothing more than to take her pain away. She’s had more than enough of it, more than anyone should bear. 

“Jules,” he says again, reaching for her hand. He presses her palm over his chest, above his heart, makes her feel the reality of it beating. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Her gaze drops from his face to her hand where it’s resting in the center of his chest and back up again. There’s an utterly bewildered expression on her face, an almost comical blend of disbelief, wonder, confusion, hope, happiness. Julia pushes her hand firmer against his chest and Quentin has to stabilize himself so as not to fall on his ass. 

“You’re not going anywhere,” she says, awed, fisting her hand in his shirt to pull him into a hug. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Quentin repeats, wrapping his arms around her, and buries his nose in her hair. He soaks up her scent, the feeling of getting to have this, her love.

Julia starts laughing then, between wet sniffles—bursts of joy that shake them both, and Quentin can’t help but laugh too, tears springing into his eyes. She holds onto him tightly, a weight against his front that is so familiar and comfortable it makes him ache that there was ever a moment, however tiny, that made him think he’d be willing to give this up. 

It takes both of them a while to calm down, and Julia grabs his shoulders, pushing him away to look at him.

She’s turned somber. “Q, how did you get back? What happened?”

Quentin shrugs helplessly. “I stepped through a doorway that was supposed to take me where I needed to go, and I—I came out on campus. By the bonfire.”

Julia’s brows furrow. “The bonfire,” she echoes tonelessly. “We—we couldn’t say goodbye, Q. We—that bonfire—”

“I know. I saw.”

“You did?” Julia has a look on her face, too exhausted to be surprised.

“I saw you. All of you, and I—” Tears make his vision blurry. Guilt, grief and shame clog up his throat as he remembers watching them: his friends, his family, mourning him, trying to say goodbye when they shouldn’t ever have been in that situation. They shouldn’t have had to go through it because he—

Quentin buries his face in his hands, exhaling shakily. 

“There was a split second, in front the Seam,” he starts, tries, fails, to keep his voice even. “A split second—I thought—I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to save everyone. In that split second I decided to—I don’t know—make the sacrifice, I guess. The truth is, I gave up. For a split second, I gave up.”

Julia sucks in a sharp breath. She covers her mouth with both her hands, eyes filling up with tears again as she looks at him with so much sadness.

He casts his eyes down. “I couldn’t—I thought—” He clears his throat. “If I died saving my friends—If I died doing something heroic…that it wouldn’t be—it wouldn’t be me…killing myself.”

Julia silently twines their hands together, squeezing, anchoring, comforting. Quentin makes himself look her in the eyes. 

“It was a split second, barely there, but now—now it feels like eternity. And I—when I got down to the Underworld, and when I watched all of you around the fire—it. Jules, I—I didn’t want to die. I don’t want to die. There are these—you know, these—these thoughts in my head, and—and—they keep coming back but—I thought about it before. More than once. More often than I can remember. But—but when I watched you, I—I knew before but I didn’t—” He sucks in a breath, letting out a small noise, searching for the words. Talking about what he did, it feels like pouring acid down his throat, but he knows he needs to say it; for himself, for Julia, too. “Death—death always seemed so—romantic. Easy. Liberating. It was always there, the thought—the idea. But—. But the thought of actually dying—I—I never wanted to. I always thought that it’s because I couldn’t bring myself to just do it but—but—that’s not. It’s not it. I had hope—I still do—that there’s more. More than what I’m feeling all the time. More than—more than convincing myself that I want to die. More than hoping I would, because it would be easier than—than living through all of this. 

I don’t want to die. I want to fight. I want to—I want to live. As messy as it is, most of the time, but—this is me. I want to be more than that. I want to live, I want to fight, I want to get to a point where I—where my depression and these thoughts—where they’re not what I feel like what defines me most. 

I want to live, Julia. And I’m—I’m sorry for, for giving into that split second. You shouldn’t have had to go through—through having to say goodbye around a bonfire, you shouldn’t have had to say goodbye at all because—because I do not want to die. I never really did.”

His voice breaks, wavers, dies, and getting the words out, some of them, feels as if someone dragged a big pile of garbed wire up his throat, leaving it raw, bloody, burning. At the same time, there’s—relief. Lightness. 

It’s not a cure. It’s not absolution. 

It’s a chance.

Quentin is shaking, wet noises helplessly dragging themselves out of him as he clings to Julia’s hands. She’s crying, too, squeezing her eyes shut, desperate whimpers falling from her lips, tears pooling at the tip of her chin.

She takes a deep breath, a pained sound leaving her on the exhale. “Q. Q—I’m so sorry for not—for not asking how you were. For asking you to, you know, ground _me_ when I turned into a goddess again when—when I should’ve been grounding you. Or—at least trying to.”

“Jules—”

“No, Q, don’t. I was being a terrible friend all these last few weeks. I saw you— _I saw you_ , and I didn’t—I don’t have an excuse for this.”

He squeezes her hands in return. 

Julia sniffles. “I’m sorry you felt that way,” she says eventually. “I’m so sorry you—I’m sorry you went through that. I—listen, the last thing I want to do is tell you how to feel right now but—Q, you don’t have to die to be a hero. There are so many ways in which you already are one—were one _before_ —” She bites her lip, not finishing the sentence. “You have this notion of—of big, noble acts of heroism but you don’t—you don’t see that _your_ heroism is just as valid and _true_. Quentin, your heroism is your compassion, your love, your empathy. It’s you fighting against all odds, finding ways to help, to save, to fix. It’s you not giving up. It’s you finding the strength to—to face that darkest part of you. You are a hero, Q. You just—you never let yourself see that.”

With each word, Quentin comes apart. With each word, the lump in his throat grows. With each word, more tears spill from his eyes. With each word, he feels a little stronger, a little braver, believes a little bit more. 

Julia says, “I promise I will help you in any way I can to—so you never get to that place again. I promise—”

“I know,” Quentin says. “I promise to fight not to get there again.”

He pulls her in, wrapping his arms tightly around her shoulders as she squeezes hers around his ribcage. 

Something hurts within him, something huge, raw, old. It hurts in a way that is new, though. It’s tentative, sensitive, so fragile.

Healing pain.

Quentin buries his nose in Julia’s hair, breathing her in, closing his eyes.

It’s not a cure. 

It’s a chance.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you,” Julia answers, words soaking through his shirt, into his skin, into his heart.

***

When Julia pulls back, tucking strands of hair behind her ears, she says, “Eliot is upstairs in his room.”

“Thank you.” Quentin smiles at her, small, happy, before he gets up and starts towards the stairs. 

Quentin slowly makes his way up. He thought he would be racing to see Eliot. He raced to the cottage. Now that he’s about to see him, he feels like he’s walking underwater. There’s a deeply strange mixture of emotions coursing through him, none of which he manages to pin down. 

He wants to see Eliot. Desperately. He wants to see Eliot back in his body; wants to look at his face and eyes and see _him_. 

Watching him at the bonfire, seeing him alive, seeing him back, _seeing_ him; it had cracked Quentin open right through his core. He’d been working so hard to get him back. 

Quentin didn’t have the chance to say goodbye. Fuck, he didn’t even say hello. 

The reality of _that_ , the reality of getting another chance hits him so hard he almost falls over. He almost didn’t get to have this. The thought shakes him violently, makes his gut roil, his vision blurry. All this time, every day, in his sleep, in the rare moments Quentin let himself daydream, he came up with a million scenarios of what he would say or do when first when Eliot was back. A million different versions of reuniting with him. 

In a million different versions, Quentin got Eliot back. In a million different versions, Quentin said hello, and never goodbye. In a million different versions, Quentin didn’t die.

Quentin feels too big for his body, too small for the world. He forces air into his lungs, past his constricted throat, past the sobs that collect on his tongue. 

The only thing carrying him forward is the knowledge that he gets to have this, his reunion with Eliot.

He’s halfway down the corridor to Eliot when Margo steps out of his room, pulling the door shut behind her with a soft noise. She spots him immediately, stopped dead in her tracks, and stares at him with wide eyes. Slowly, she looks him up and down, and Quentin can’t help but spread out his arms a little, as if to present himself.

Margo rushes forward and wraps him in a hug so tight Quentin is sure he feels several of his ribs crack. They hold on to each other for several moments while her breathing comes out in stuttering huffs of air against his neck. 

Margo who feels so deeply and tries so hard not to show it too much. Quentin breathes her in, the sharp edges of her armor completely fallen away, and relishes in this: in her, in her friendship, in her affection.

She lets go of him, taking a step back to look at him. Margo slides her hands from his shoulders to his arms. “Took you long enough,” she finally says, pursing her lips against the way her chin trembles, and Quentin can’t help the smile that steals its way across his face.

She steps aside to let him get to the door. Quentin’s hand is on the doorknob when Margo speaks again.

“Listen, if you wanna bang it out, by all means, have at it. Just don’t give each other heart attacks over your mutually healing dicks, yeah? I need some goddamn fucking peace and quiet for more than five minutes.”

Quentin squints at her. “If our dicks have healing qualities, shouldn’t they prevent heart attacks from happening?”

Margo rolls her eyes at him, so hard, Quentin thinks he hears something strain. “I can’t believe that those are the first words out of your mouth to me.”

He opens his mouth to respond but she waves him off. “Go be fucking Disney princes at each other.”

Quentin shakes his head, smiling to himself as she turns and walks down the hallway, disappearing down the stairs. 

***

He glances down at his hand on the doorknob, his heart thundering in his chest. 

Carefully, Quentin opens the door. The first thing he notices, of all things, is that this isn’t Eliot’s room—not anymore, at the very least, given that he hasn’t been back at Brakebills in Gods know how long. It doesn’t smell like him anymore, either, and there’s nothing in here Quentin recognizes as Eliot’s. 

It all falls away, though, when his eyes land on Eliot, sitting on the window sill looking out. He’s leaning against an assortment of pillows, the cane on the floor by his feet, a tumbler of what Quentin assumes is whiskey sitting by his knee.

Quentin can’t see his face, turned away towards the window, and the only light in the room comes from a couple of lit candles around the room. Eliot sits unmoving, as if frozen in time, and Quentin aches, all over, down to his very core.

A million different versions, and Quentin says, “El.”

Eliot perks up, his eyes following Quentin’s voice until they’re meeting each other’s gazes from across opposite ends of the room. 

Exhaustion and grief are so clear and open on Eliot’s face it punches the air right out of Quentin’s lungs. His eyes, like Alice’s and Julia’s, are red; hurt etched around them, sadness in the set of his lips. The contrast to those couple of seconds at the park, that precious heartbeat of a moment, hits Quentin like a ton of bricks to the chest. 

He’s thought of that smile— _Q_ —every time he fell asleep. He’s held on to the look on Eliot’s face— _Peaches and plums, motherfucker_ —and pictured it every time he woke up. He’s remembered the hope in Eliot’s eyes— _I’m alive in here_ —whenever someone suggested sacrificing him. 

He’s broken into a thousand fractures of himself every time he pulled it up in his mind— _Fifty years. Who gets proof of concept like that?_ —and glued himself back together with the knowledge that Eliot was alive.

“Q,” Eliot says, caught between a question, a plea, and a statement. He casts a glance at the—seemingly—untouched glass of whiskey. “Am I dreaming you up?”

Quentin can feel the corners of his mouth twitching. “If you were,” he starts, inching his way closer to Eliot. “How would asking me help?”

Eliot swallows, turning slightly so he faces him more directly. Quentin steps in close and lowers himself to his knees. The flickering light of the candles make soft shadows dance across Eliot’s face. His eyes search Quentin’s, the same pained-turned-hopeful expression on his features as in the park.

As the seconds tick by, each of which Quentin feels pass excruciatingly slowly, Eliot brings his hands up to Quentin’s face, oh so carefully tracing his fingertips over his eyebrows, his cheeks, his temples, his jaw, his lips. Quentin holds still and lets Eliot explore, tracking every tiny change of emotion on his features in return.

Eliot’s hands move down, grazing his neck, his collarbones, settle, finally, on both sides over his ribs, fingers splaying wide against Quentin’s ribcage. Quentin shudders at the touch, lungs filling to the brim, his chest expanding in the process, pressing into Eliot’s hands. He relishes in the pressure of it, basks in the feeling of Eliot pushing a bit firmer against him as Quentin takes another deep breath.

A smile— _the_ smile, the one of recognition, of hope, of relief—spreads slowly over Eliot’s face, lights it up entirely, so sweet, so radiant, and his eyes shine wetly as he gazes at Quentin, a burst of surprised laughter falling from his lips.

“Q.”

Quentin blinks tears out of his eyes, laughs wetly, too, trying to maintain all his emotions crashing down in waves over his head. 

It feels big, powerful. In a way that’s so different to the overwhelming moment in front of the Seam: brighter and more brilliant. It feels too big for his body to contain, spilling out his eyes in the form of tears as Eliot lowers himself to his knees as well, one hand sliding around the back of Quentin’s head and the other around his waist. It spills out of his mouth as he sobs and shakes into Eliot’s collarbone, spills out when he wraps his arms around Eliot’s shoulders; it spills and spills and spills, so much more than Quentin thought he could be holding inside.

Quentin could get lost in the feeling of Eliot’s body against his, wrapped up neatly in his arms, fitting against him as if he’d spent a lifetime moulding their bodies together. In a lifetime, he did. He still remembers. 

Eliot’s fingers are carding through the hair on his nape, then smoothing flat against his skin, squeezing his neck. He nose is buried against the crook of Quentin’s neck and Quentin feels his breath ghosting against his skin, sending tiny shocks down his spine. 

“I’ve missed you so fucking much,” Quentin confesses, crumpling the fabric of Eliot’s shirt in his fingers. 

Eliot exhales, leaning a little heavier against Quentin. “I spent so much time with memories of you,” he admits after a beat, into the delicate skin behind his ear. “None of them were as—were as generous as you.”

Quentin’s heart stutters over the words in excitement while an ache settles at the base of his stomach at the same time. 

He hooks his chin over Eliot’s shoulder, rubbing his thumbs along his back. A thousand thoughts whirl through his head. He knows why he fought tooth and nail to get Eliot back alive. Apparently, it was transparent enough for, at the very least, Alice, Julia, and Margo. Honestly, he’d do the same for any of them, but Eliot—the need to save Eliot was so visceral, carved itself into his very bones, that Quentin had been ready to burn the entire world down just to have him back. 

It scared him a little, every time he’d allowed himself to really think about it. It scared him how all-encompassing and deep his emotions were, how they swallowed him whole—always did, always do, really, except what he felt—feels—for Eliot so different than anything else.

“I really fucking missed you, too, Q,” Eliot says, soft, so soft, and Quentin adjusts his grip, pulling him infinitesimally closer. It’s the only way he knows how to respond—the only way he can respond. He turns his head, pressing his cheek against Eliot’s shoulder, and it’s the most comfortable he’s been in what feels like an eternity. Quentin’s about to close his eyes and just—stay like this. He can’t even care that his knees hurt from the hard floor.

It’s that moment that Eliot breaks their hug, sliding his hands down Quentin’s arms and to his hands, gingerly hooking his fingers around Quentin’s. 

“I hate to break this up for the moment,” Eliot says gravely as he rises to his feet, pulling Quentin along with him. “But there’s something deeply urgent and important I need to tell you, and I’d very much love it not having to be in an extremely undignified way on a cold floor.”

Quentin lets himself be manhandled by Eliot until they sit down on the bed. Eliot tucks a knee up so he can fully face him, and, God, Quentin’s breath hitches in his throat at the sight of him sitting there, looking giddy, nervous, hopeful. He reaches for Quentin and slides his hand over his knee, lets it settle on his thigh.

Quentin’s pretty sure he’s having an aneurysm right about now. Eliot’s casual but intimate touches have always been something of a comfort for him, the seeming ease with which Eliot could hand out little gestures, a brush of shoulders, a hand in his hair, a hug, has left Quentin craving. As it is, the warmth of Eliot’s fingers seep through his pants, his skin soaking it up hungrily. 

Eliot fixes him with a look, takes a moment to search his face before he clears his throat upon finding, apparently, what he was looking for.

“As much of a fuckfest this—was, it did something for me,” Eliot says. He furrows his brows, looking down. Then, he straightens his shoulders, gaze travelling back up to meet Quentin’s. 

“I don’t think I follow,” Quentin admits as he draws his eyebrows together in confusion.

Eliot smiles softly. “Aw,” he says, his free hand coming up to tenderly brush against Quentin’s chin. “I’m not finished yet.”

His eyes go so devastatingly soft, Quentin has to look away for a moment.

“When I broke through that one time, when I told you I was alive—I had to face my most repressed memory in order to be able to do that.” There’s something in Eliot’s voice, something Quentin can’t place. “It was, indeed, so repressed a memory version of you practically clobbered me over the head with it before I remembered.”

Quentin is about to ask how the heck he would know about Eliot’s most repressed memory when Eliot raises his eyebrows slightly, and Quentin deflates. 

Eliot takes a deep breath, rubbing his thumb over Quentin’s thigh, probably not even realizing it but driving him nuts all the more.

“The memory was of us,” he finally says, the words coming out on a rush of air. “Right after we remembered our lives in Fillory when you—when you asked me to—to be with you.”

The confession hits Quentin in many unexpected ways, none of which he could articulate if his life depended on it. It leaves him light-headed and his heart racing.

“I promised you—well, memory you, anyway—” Eliot stops short. There are few instances in which Quentin has seen him look as vulnerable as he looks now. It’s raw and eviscerating, so violently different from the facade Eliot hides himself behind, and Quentin hurts with how much he wishes Eliot didn’t have to feel compelled to do that. “I promised that I’d be braver if I ever got out. I’d be braver because I learned it from you. So—”

Eliot draws his hand away from Quentin’s thigh, moving so they’re not touching at all, and Quentin can feel his blood freezing up, feels himself paling, feels himself wanting to bolt out the door.

“I know this is not even in the realm of arriving fashionably late with Starbucks but—I’m sorry. When I told you no it wasn’t because I didn’t love you. I pushed you away because—because I was afraid I’d fuck us up if I gave into you. I was afraid. I was scared that you chose _me_ ; I was scared that after fifty years together you _still_ chose me. The prospect of—of being happy with you out here, in our time, where—where we’re not in a bubble—it scared me so fucking much. Can’t fuck up a perfectly good thing if you don’t have it.”

He says that last part with a self-deprecating little chuckle that leaves Quentin reeling. The words are bouncing around in his head, and it takes him several moments to make sense of them, takes another one for them to settle and bloom.

Before he can say anything, Eliot continues. “I ran away because the thought that someone—that _you_ could love me—that I could have another lifetime with you, potentially—that was so. So huge,” he says, voice breaking, and Eliot casts his eyes down, sucking in a breath. “I can’t promise not to fuck up somehow. Fuck, I don’t even know if you still want me after this. But I promise to work for—for us. For you. If you’ll have me.”

Quentin can barely breathe. “You—your most repressed memory is—is rejecting me?”

It shouldn’t surprise him, maybe, with everything he knows about Eliot, that he’d deny himself the prospect of happiness out of fear of—fucking up, not being good enough, thinking he wasn’t anyone’s first choice. The knowledge makes Quentin’s heart seize up in agony, thinking about all those little moments they’d shared after—in which Eliot had been so affectionate but yearning, hurting, just as much as Quentin. 

Eliot looks soul-numbingly heartbroken, guilt and shame on his face as he cuts a quick glance at Quentin.

“El,” Quentin says, scooching a little closer, their knees brushing, and the contact zips through him like a shock.

Eliot meets his eyes, cracked open, all his emotions pouring out of him. 

“I love you.”

Eliot’s eyes widen, stunned, as if he’d expected a different answer. It lasts only a second, though, before the most radiant smile breaks across his face, eyes so full of softness Quentin almost loses his balance and faceplants into his shoulder.

Eliot slides his hands along his jaw, thumbs resting on the sides of his face, tenderly brushing over his skin. “I love you, Q.”

Quentin is helpless but to lean into his touch, into him, meeting Eliot’s lips halfway. It’s sweet, really, achingly soft and tender, full of stored up yearning. It spreads through all of his body, illuminates some of the darkness within—warms him. He curls his hands around Eliot’s wrists, and Eliot draws back, just a little, just enough to speak.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” he says. “I’m ready now.”

Quentin leans in for another kiss, feels Eliot’s lips move against his, and it’s rush a of blood to the head: thrilling, sparking fucking fireworks within, leaves him tingling with love and happiness. Eliot’s smiling as he kisses him.

It’s not a cure. 

It’s a chance. Not just for him; for Eliot, too.

Quentin feels excitement bubbling in his veins, for the first time in a long time—excitement mingled with hope, mingled with joy.

A million different versions in his mind. None of them nearly as wonderful, challenging, promising as reality.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer, in case you were wondering: Eliot's had his injury healed in this. I'm a bit peeved that he even was out and about in 413 because with a wound like his and the non-magical surgery treatment he shouldn't be able to be vertical at that point, so. Anyway. 
> 
> If you feel like it, you can come say hi on either [twitter](https://twitter.com/proofsofconcept) or [tumblr](https://coldwaughtered.tumblr.com/).


End file.
